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Monday, April 02, 2012

Memorial Day Weekend 2012 on Miami Beach...y'all ready for this?

UPDATED on May 25, 2012 with important info on South Beach traffic problems. CLICK HERE to read!

Shortly after Ray Martinez was sworn-in as Miami Beach's new police chief almost two weeks ago, he dropped a tantalizing hint on how he planned to deal with the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend festivities. Martinez told WSVN, "We will be enforcing our minor ordinances and minor laws that are on the books which we have been doing since New Year's Eve."

That ain't the half of it.

Tim Elfrink at Miami New Times has gotten his hands "on the Beach's tentative plans for preventing this year's festivities from devolving into the police-shooting scene that made SoBe a national embarrassment last year."

Or to put it another way, if Chief Martinez and Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez get their way, this year's Memorial Day Weekend festivities on the beach won't be very "festive."

At the heart of the 20-page plan are: street closures up the ying-yang, strict enforcement of open container laws, zero-tolerance for illegal parking, nightly DUI and "safety" checkpoints near Watson Island on the MacArthur Causeway, possible closure of the MacArthur if traffic becomes unmanageable, "enhanced enforcement of obstruction of traffic" and a "traffic/cruising loop" that's been cleverly devised to "route [non-resident] traffic through and out of the city." (See attachment D.)

Click to enlarge.

My prediction: 2012's Memorial Day arrest figures will surpass those of previous years.
Another prediction: "Nightmare" doesn't even begin to describe what traffic on South Beach will be like during the 3 to 4-day weekend.